


Sitis

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: F/M, I feel like I have to tag things like this as cursed ship, as a warning because no one shld have to endure niki's rose-tinted lenses without warning, unfortunate pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9169756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: First it is something real and tangible — and later, it is not.A drabble written for the prompt "sitis: thirst"





	

First it is something real and tangible; it burns her lungs and leaves her throat coarse, and sometimes, times she recalls more vividly than she wishes she does, it is so bad that it takes days for her to regain the strength required to speak. They would never allow her to die of it — what a kindness that would be — but they like her delirious, and when the chemicals are not enough, malnourishment is an effective supplement. 

Water is a privilege, and, she is taught, it is their power to deny her of it. 

Niki knows thirst, the sort that makes her vision blur, that makes her see things where there is nothing; the ache and the delirium and the _want_. Most children her age would have many wants: new clothes, new dolls, or perhaps more sensible things — clean clothes, a bed to sleep in, a hand to hold. Niki cannot bring herself to want even the most humble. When you are dying of thirst, you learn to want nothing but water, and when you get it you are grateful not to _want_ any longer. 

First it is something real and tangible — and later, it is not. 

Her life changes, slowly, and in ways she has not come to terms with fully, but it changes all the same. She is well-nourished and well-rested, and she is so far from dying of thirst that at the start it feels like drowning. She does not want any of this, even as she is given it, and yet she is given it all the same. 

Her life changes, and so does she.

She is retaught what it means to _want_. 

_Good morning, Niki._

_You look lovely today, Niki._

_Would you help me, Niki?_

Every repetition is a lesson in desire. 

_Niki. Niki. Niki._

She _wants_ this. She wants to hear him say her name like this again and again and again — like she is a person, like she is alive, like she is real. 

_Niki —_

When he says her name he gives it meaning. It has never _meant_ anything before. 

And she wants it to. 

She becomes aware of the dry spells, the moments _without_ , and how she thirsts; the aching and the delirium and the _wanting_ , as though her name is water and she has not drank in weeks, months, years — in her entire _life_. 

As though the way he says her name is water, and she would like to die submerged in it.


End file.
